Multi car pile up on the motorway

[TW]Fox;18159032 said:
And I say that not as somebody who is holier than thou, but as somebody who knows very well what happens when your driving sucks.

Citation please ;)
 
[TW]Fox;18159075 said:
I once had this BMW which I thought I was amazing at driving. Turns out actually I was just as average as everyone else when it comes to car control :D

Ohhh, thought there was something else juicy from the young mans past.

I hope you have come to terms with your herbacious border fobia :D
 
hope the Ka driver gets royally shafted for this for both leaving the scene of an accident with obvious casualties and for being a complete berk FFS how hard is it to look in your mirrors and see a big bloody insignia bearing down on you.

really boils my pee that people just pull out sometines without looking. see it all the time on the M8 indicator lights up, and at the same time the car lurches violently into your lane causing you to brake. they fit mirrors for a reason you morons
 
I'm not saying it was necessarily the case here but I am amazed at the tiny gaps people leave between them and the car in front. In fact I would go as far as saying what most drivers consider a safe distance at 70mph even when prompted is laughably too close should the car in front have to make an emergency stop.
 
It has ABS brakes, the 330, so perhaps the OP could have swerved.

But given the layout of the road & the traffic conditions, personally I doubt the outcome would have been any different.

Toms OK & lesson learned is the main point I think.
 
I'm not saying it was necessarily the case here but I am amazed at the tiny gaps people leave between them and the car in front. In fact I would go as far as saying what most drivers consider a safe distance at 70mph even when prompted is laughably too close should the car in front have to make an emergency stop.

I'm truely awful for that, I'll put my hands up to it too, I seem to adopt a manic persona when I'm behind the wheel of the porka, same doesnt happen so much in the beemer probably because its so relatively slow and relaxing.

dare I say it, most of the time I find myself listening to dubstep in the 911 and classic FM in the bmw....

there's a sentence I never thought I write!
 
I feel your pain but can't help think you were driving far too close and the unfamiliarity with the vehicle is no excuse. I say this because I have two cars with significant difference in performance and even though I'm used to it, it still never ceases to amaze me when I swap between them how different they are.

Highway code says stopping distance from 60mph is 240 feet. We all know most cars nowadays achieve coming to a halt much faster.

My daily driver is an Audi and my weekend toy is a Porsche. The Porker brakes are phenomenal and can come to a stop from 60 in circa 100 feet. My Audi is a far different story though... The times that I pop out in the Audi after having driven the Porker, the limitations are immediately obvious which force me to change the speed I drive at and braking distance I leave. It's something that comes naturally and it should do so even more if it's an alien car to you. Just like when you pick up a hire car!

If you had been driving the car for a few miles you should have noticed the difference in braking!!

The fact that it was a different car is all the more reason to give yourself extra space. Leason learnt anyway.
 
Would a 330 not have gone into the back of the Insignia then?

Given how comprehensively the lighter 316 Compact went into the Insignia, I rather doubt the results would have been very different in a heavier 330, wider tyres or not! Still, a bad workman will blame his tools :) No offence, Tom!
 
Given how comprehensively the lighter 316 Compact went into the Insignia, I rather doubt the results would have been very different in a heavier 330, wider tyres or not! Still, a bad workman will blame his tools :) No offence, Tom!

Indeed, bad workmen do blame their tools. Offence or not.

I'm quite happy to admit I'm a knob when it comes to being behind the wheel and today I really was, damp and too close to people, don't normally do that but for some reason couldn't help it today. Anyway, if I'd ploughed into the back of someone and done that much damage to my e36 I'd hold my hands up and say 'I messed up' not 'car in front messed up, couldn't avoid it'.

This would have been easily avoided if rG was NOT up the arse of the Insignia, which he can only have been to not scrub off much if any speed and mangle the e36 like that. What further emphasises this is the fact the unlucky guy in the Insignia had to be cut out of the car, shows he was shunted damn hard too. Also the fact the KA was driveable and gone shows that the initial collision was actually quite minor, the real one was e36 into Insignia.

So, to sum up. rG...hope this teaches you to not drive like a tool, the combined efforts of yourself and the KA driver nearly killed someone today.
 
Ouch looks nasty :eek:.

Agree with Fox et al, going into the back of someone else is only ever your fault. But Tom seems pretty humble and sticking up his hands about it to me!

Robbie & Will have a good point though - I really try to keep a decent gap on the motorway (partly because I'm in a Saxo without ABS and I've seen their crash test videos!) and the number of ****s that pull out into your nice safe gap is just ARGH! :mad:
Also when I'm in a stationary/10MPH queue you see people pull out all the time into the middle lane without a care in the world, not so funny when the HGVs have to slam their anchors on!

Though I guess thinking about it, the whole point of the 2-second rule is that when you see the car ahead brake it's your time to react and also brake. But if the car ahead manages to decelerate faster than you (be it by smacking a stationary object or Brembo 6-pots) then your still going into it even though you'd kept 2-seconds back - just at a lower speed difference than if you'd been right up their arse.


I haven't seen anyone here's driving, and fortunately none of you lot have seen mine :p... but I'm probably in the drive-it-like-you-stole-it category :D. And there's been a few times when I've changed between cars I've nearly caught myself out with driving it like the one I was driving last.
 
for the last time I'm NOT blaming the car, i've already said it was my fault, inanimate objects cannot be blamed for bad judgement, just merely commenting that I feel things may have been slightly different if I had been in what I am more used to, not shifting the blame to the car. In reality even if i had stopped quicker then the end result wouldve been the mini being further wedged up my **** so perhaps a blessing in disguise from a selfish point of view.

"guns dont kill people people do"
 
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I guess most people have read the Highway Code better than you ;)

The HC advocates leaving a 2 second gap on faster roads such as motorways (double this in the wet) which is not enough to avoid a collision if the car front went from 70mph to stationary instantly. The point is that this is most unlikely to happen (impossible in fact) - 2 seconds is enough to absorb your reaction time and the difference in speeds if the car in front starts braking hard.

If a stationary object suddenly appears in front of you, then the gap you have left to the car in front is irrelevant...

you quite clearly don't read the highway code, because it advocates At Least a 2second gap

Or more Specifically:

126
Stopping Distances
Drive at a speed that will allow you to stop well within the distance you can see to be clear. You should
leave enough space between you and the vehicle in front so that you can pull up safely if it suddenly slows down or stops. The safe rule is never to get closer than the overall stopping distance (see Typical Stopping Distances PDF below)
allow at least a two-second gap between you and the vehicle in front on roads carrying faster-moving traffic and in tunnels where visibility is reduced. The gap should be at least doubled on wet roads and increased still further on icy roads
remember, large vehicles and motorcycles need a greater distance to stop. If driving a large vehicle in a tunnel, you should allow a four-second gap between you and the vehicle in front
If you have to stop in a tunnel, leave at least a 5-metre gap between you and the vehicle in front.

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/TravelAndTransport/Highwaycode/DG_070304

It quite clearly says "The safe rule is never to get closer than the overall stopping distance"

The Overall Stopping Distance at 70mph is ..315 feet / 96maccording to the highway code.

http://www.direct.gov.uk/prod_consu...n/@motor/documents/digitalasset/dg_188029.pdf

Thats quite long, which i dont think anybody on the motorway follows so this isn't a criticism of Tom.

Considering a car with Good Brakes like the 330i can stop from 70 in under 200 feet, thats plenty of room spare to panic and still stop in time.

The highway code does not advocate leaving a stopping distance which isnt long enough to stop safely in the event that something like this happens (ie the car in front impacts something and comes to an abrubt stop)
 
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you quite clearly don't read the highway code, because it advocates At Least a 2second gap

Or more Specifically:



http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/TravelAndTransport/Highwaycode/DG_070304

It quite clearly says "The safe rule is never to get closer than the overall stopping distance"

The Overall Stopping Distance at 70mph is ..315 feet / 96maccording to the highway code.

http://www.direct.gov.uk/prod_consu...n/@motor/documents/digitalasset/dg_188029.pdf

Thats quite long, which i dont think anybody on the motorway follows so this isn't a criticism of Tom.

Considering a car with Good Brakes like the 330i can stop from 70 in under 200 feet, thats plenty of room spare to panic and still stop in time.

The highway code does not advocate leaving a stopping distance which isnt long enough to stop safely in the event that something like this happens (ie the car in front impacts something and comes to an abrubt stop)

Sorry but no. The highway code states stopping distances. That is, coming to a halt. The fact that the car in front hit something or not is irrelavant. He didn't leave enough space to stop.
 
looks like a sore one glad everyone doesn't appear to be to badly injured. The person driving the ka should hopefully found and done for leaving the accident and so on.
 
I would imagine probably what is quite dangerous these days is actually the variation in vehicle abilities that are on our roads.

If you're in a 20 year old Ford or Vauxhall without ABS behind a new Merc that does an emergency stop, I'd hazard a guess that even following the two second rule would see you plough in to the back of them. :o
 
I would imagine probably what is quite dangerous these days is actually the variation in vehicle abilities that are on our roads.

If you're in a 20 year old Ford or Vauxhall without ABS behind a new Merc that does an emergency stop, I'd hazard a guess that even following the two second rule would see you plough in to the back of them. :o

undoubtedly, unless you are an OcUK forum poster then you could feather the brakes use IAM techniques and use your windscreen wipers as sails to avoid the incident
 
I would imagine probably what is quite dangerous these days is actually the variation in vehicle abilities that are on our roads.

If you're in a 20 year old Ford or Vauxhall without ABS behind a new Merc that does an emergency stop, I'd hazard a guess that even following the two second rule would see you plough in to the back of them. :o

Without a doubt. Out of habbit I always look in the mirror when I have to brake on the hard side to judge if I have to ease of or not based on how quickly the car behind is approaching me. Comes in handy in the Porker for sure...
 
Also when I'm in a stationary/10MPH queue you see people pull out all the time into the middle lane without a care in the world, not so funny when the HGVs have to slam their anchors on!

Yes, too true.

The M6/M1/A14 Junctions are notorious for this, I can only hope those who do pull out infront of an approaching HGV have not looked. Why? because they must be psycho's to see the rig thundering down on them & then deem it a good idea to pull out infront of it.... !
 
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